Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) announced today that the company has secured a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for Sasol’s world-scale ethane cracker and associated derivative chemicals facility at its Lake Charles Chemical Complex in Louisiana. Sasol announced the new project at a public event in December 2012, where Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal noted that the project would be the largest single manufacturing investment in the history of Louisiana. Fluor will book approximately $120 million for the FEED contract into backlog in the second quarter. FEED work is under way and is expected to be completed in late 2013.

“Sasol has been a strategic client of Fluor’s in South Africa since 1960. For more than 50 years, we have played a leading role in establishing and expanding their coal-to-liquids and chemicals facilities,” said Peter Oosterveer, president of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals Group. “We are both excited and committed to play a leading role in Sasol’s robust international expansion plans into the United States. We expect to leverage our extensive global supply chain capability and maximize the use of modular fabrication and self-perform construction to provide Sasol with schedule and cost certainty for their landmark capital investment in the U.S. Gulf Coast region.”

The new ethane cracker and associated facilities will allow Sasol to expand its differentiated derivatives business in the United States. Project start-up and completion is forecast in 2017 with the expected production of 1.5 million tons-per-year of ethylene with downstream derivative plants.

Project work will be led from Fluor’s Houston office with assistance from its offices in Southern California and Manila, the Philippines.